Paper notes have been broadly used in recording, sharing, and communicating ideas and information. For example, during a collaboration session (e.g., brainstorming session), participants write down ideas on Post-It® notes, whiteboard, or paper, and then share with one another. In addition, people commonly use notes throughout the day to memorialize information or content which the individual does not want to forget. As additional examples, people frequently use notes as reminders of actions or events to take in the future, such as to make a telephone call, revise a document or to fill out a time sheet.
For example, in many situations people participate in a collaboration session by writing information on paper-based notes, such as Post-it® notes. Paper Post-it® notes can readily be removed from a dispenser pad of sticky-back paper Post-it® notes and applied to various surfaces, such as whiteboards, documents, the tops of desks, telephones, or the like. Information can be written on paper Post-it® notes either before or after the paper Post-it® notes are detached from their dispenser pad or attached to their target surfaces. Paper Post-it® notes can be easily moved from one surface to another, such as between documents or between documents and the tops of desks, they can overlap edges or boundaries of documents, they can be layered, and they can be moved with the objects to which they are attached.
Software programs currently exist which permit computer users to manually create software-based notes in digital form and to utilize the digital notes within computing environments. For example, a computer user may create digital notes and “attach” the digital notes to an electronic document, a desktop, or an electronic workspace presented by the computing environment. The computer user may manipulate the notes, allowing the notes to be created, deleted, edited, saved, and selectively viewed. The computer user may move such a note within a document, or between documents and/or the desktop, by cutting the note from a document, storing the note in a clipboard, and then pasting the note to another area of the same document or to a different document. In this way, the software programs provide a virtual representation of notes and allow an individual to utilize the digital notes in a manner similar to physical notes that he or she may use on a daily basis.